Before I begin writing this blog I would like to say to my readers old and new that I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time and that the New Year is good to you all. Christmas was a little stressful with the threat of being flooded, and that same threat is still there as I write this blog tonight, but the reality of it is that if the waters come, there isn’t any way to stop it. However, in the hope that we won’t have the storms predicted, here is a blog about “Days of Blood and Starlight” by Laini Taylor, the second in a trilogy.

If you haven’t read the first book “Daughter of Smoke and Bone,” I would avoid reading this blog entry specifically as I cannot guarantee that it will be spoiler free – although – as always I shall try to remain devoid of spoilers for this specific book.

The plot picks up a short time after Karou left the human world for Eretz to find her people in the hope that they hadn’t been utterly destroyed. The Chimera that remained was brought to the Human world and this is where we jump into the storyline. Hiding out in the Moroccan desert Karou took over as the resurrectionist in order to keep her people alive, to try and reap her own penance from her forbidden love with an Angel. The Angel, Akiva, has his own problems trying to keep the chimera clans safe, at the same time carrying the title “Beasts Bane” for what he did to Karou’s people.

It is difficult to talk about this book without mentioning too much and giving too much away as a lot of stuff happens that advances the plot, with just a few twists and turns that I didn’t expect. I think the only downfall is that most of the plot movement happens in the last half of the book which I felt was much stronger than the first. In the first Karou was a lot mopey about her life, her situation, her new role in the post-genocide of her people and just why did nobody like her?

I found the self depreciation quite hard to read through, and I think it stunted my reading of this. I think the first book took me literally days to read, and this took a bit longer. As soon as the action started I was hooked again on this immense world, this world of angels and chimera, this eternal battle raging even when the war was “over”. Akiva was infinitely more interesting to me in this instalment, not just some lovesick puppy, and Karou… less so in terms of her ability to see the bigger picture. That being said, what she did at the end impressed me, and that ending! I am very much looking forward to reading the next book that’s for sure. In fact, I will probably pre-order it from Amazon when the picture of the hardcover is released [this is always a factor for me, being able to see the cover for some reason – it makes the order more real].

When I was reading this I thought that once the action had started that it would rush to some sort of conclusion, but as the revelations and twists kept coming and the ending, the cliff-hanger that it was… it’s understandable.

The conclusion to this trilogy will be EPIC, meanwhile, I shall be reading “A Storm of Swords, part 2: Blood and Gold”.